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Jessica Hernandez

English 1302

October 6, 2010In Yellow Surprise

In Richard Wrights “Between the World and Me” the use of extraordinary realism is

utilized to create images to travel through the events of the poem with great awareness. This

poem tells of a black man who discovers a crime scene as a belated witness then learns of the

social injustice, and man’s inhumanity to man that took place. He stumbles upon the scene in the

woods and shifts from the detached observer to vicarious suffering, and in the end deals with the

loss of innocence and ironic enlightenment brought to him by discovering the gruesome crime

scene. Three literary elements to carry the tone of indignation throughout the poem are

personification, vivid imagery, and symbolism.

Wright uses personification to give the poem life and give the speaker in the story the

ability to amplify his emotions of surprise, anger, and fear. In the beginning of the poem the

speaker describes the scene as “guarded by scaly oaks and elms” as to say that nature guarded

and preserved the scene. The speaker gives the woods life and creates an eerie feeling by saying

the woods “guarded” the scene. Then he moves towards a discovery of white “slumbering”

bones giving them human abilities of sleeping, which symbolize the eternal sleep of death. He

uses this description early in the poem to say that someone has died here, this was their final

place on this earth. Next as the speaker moves on in his story and horrifically shifts from the

observer to the victim he portrays the dramatic changes in his surroundings “the ground gripped

my feet; ... the sun died in the sky; a night wind muttered in the grass; … the darkness screamed

with thirsty voices; and the witnesses rose and lived.” The speaker tells of his terror during his

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change using personification to give human properties to the woods as the ground immobilizes

him, the light turns to darkness, the silence turns into chaotic screams, and the speaker relives the

night of the crime.

The author’s use of vivid imagery creates the images in the poem giving the reader a

clear view of the frightening events and awareness of what is being described by the speaker. He

illustrates with contempt the scene of a marry crowd in the darkness “the gin-flask passed from

mouth to mouth; cigars… glowed, the whore smeared the lipstick red upon her lips.” In this

stanza the speaker is criticizing the crowd for celebrating and laughing as he is in panic not

knowing what they will do to him next. He tells of his intense panic and dread as he learns of the

plans the merciless beings have for him “a thousand faces swirled around me, clamoring that my

life be burned”. With this line the reader can vividly see the mob surround the victim and taught

and torture him before they carry out their plan. He describes the intense agony and pain inflicted

upon his body by the brutal drunken pack “… my skin clung to the bubbling hot tar, falling from

me in limp patches” as he is tarred and tortured. This powerful line is so intense that the reader

can imagine the pain on their own skin becoming vicarious victims as well as the speaker in the

poem.

Richard Wright uses symbolism intensely in this poem to help transmit the feelings of

anger and indignation to the reader. His anger is intense when he writes of the discovery of the

crime scene “a sapling pointing a blunt finger accusingly at the sky” as to accuse God for

allowing this travesty to happen. He uses this line as if he were to the heavens “How could you

let this happen to me?” Then when he writes of the scene of the mercilessly burning victim he

writes of great irony when the speakers says, “Then my blood was cooled mercifully, cooled by a

baptism of gasoline.” The victims’ skin is cooled by a baptism of gasoline which is not meant to

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cool his body at all. Baptism symbolically means rebirth, depicting the victims’ rebirth to the

reality and knowledge gained of the hate crimes happening at this time frame in history. At the

end of the poem the speaker says “Now I am dry bones and my face a stony skull staring in

yellow surprise at the sun…” symbolizing the ironic enlightenment that comes at the end of this

merciless killing. There is a shift from innocence to knowledge in this line; the victim learns that

social injustice and man’s inhumanity to man imposed on him is real.

Wright transfers the theme of loss of innocence and enlightenment in this poem vividly as

the speaker discovers a scene of a brutal murder of a black man and learns of the wickedness of

man. Through the skill of implementing literary elements such as personification, vivid imagery,

and symbolism Richard Wright achieves to tell a story of great evil moving the reader to share

his feelings of disgust.